Friday, 30 October 2009

There has been a lot of misbehaving going on, so I am proposing an amnesty. No names, no pack drill.

After finishing this Sainsbury egg and sausage sandwich with no sausage in it, I shall be leaving the vicinity for the weekend. When I come back, I expect to see all the recently stolen freedoms returned to where they belong.

Thursday, 29 October 2009

Tuesday night was a blast. A fine evening was polished off with a fine meal, in a fine restaurant, in a fine little village. A village, in fact, that featured in the national press a few years ago as containing a very high percentage of millionaires.

Which would be why, naturally, there was some loud-mouthed knob-gobbler on an adjacent table, availing himself of pricey cuisine, whilst explaining (deliberately?) loudly to his partner how the country was ruined by Thatcher, and that parents who send their kids to private or grammar schools are only doing so because they are 'snobs', are merely massaging their own egos, and have no care for the welfare of their children.

He didn't actually have 'cunt' tattooed on his forehead, but if he'd been sitting in the same seat, at the same time of day, on a Saturday night when the local rugby club tend to dine there, he may well have left decorated as such.

I was too mellow to react in customary style, and I didn't want this prick to put a dampener on my evening. A quick glance around other tables tended to suggest I was correct in my lethargy. Far from his pronouncements being taken seriously, there were quite a few knowing smirks.

You see, he was extremely well-spoken, and impeccably dressed. His very presence on a Tuesday night would lend itself to the assumption that he was probably rather well off himself and had, perhaps, benefitted from such an education to be so. Now, if that is the case, his argument falls flat and he is no more a beacon of socialism than Polly fucking Toynbee. The most execrable trait in those who have gained success on the back of education which they despise, is the inverted snobbery which dictates that the ladder must be kicked away for others who may well aspire to the same.

Now, there is the remote chance (you had to be there, and know the area, really) that he was a state boy done good. And if so, I would truly congratulate him. Except for the fact that, as socialists do, he was advocating a destruction of choice for those with whom his politics disagree. His view also shows a complete lack of regard for the consequences of the policies he was espousing, as Eamonn Butler mentioned yesterday.

Scrapping private education would place a huge additional burden on the state – leaving it with larger class sizes, or leaving taxpayers with higher taxes – all to fund the education of wealthier kids who the rest of us aren't paying for right now.

So, if this numbskull's ideas were to be followed through, the options for state school attendees would be further squeezed, and anyone who wished to become the state boy done good in the future would have a much more difficult task.

The ladder being kicked away. Again.

It matters not how this odious fucknut came into being, or how he managed to be successful enough to be enjoying an over-priced meal in a millionaires' playground in the middle of a recession. Either way, his disregard for others is stunning.

Such is the evil, selfish, nature of socialism. Politics of envy or assuaging of self-guilt. Neither is useful, but both are truly damaging.

Having been proven, by his own admission, to have misled the house as to the scale of sex trafficking by regurgitating something he read in the Daily Mirror, of all organs, Denis McShane later admitted ...

I honestly don't know how many girls are trafficked into Britain

In which case, why didn't he just shut his ridiculous, lefty gob on the matter, instead of standing up and disseminating wild hysteria in the commons? I think we ought to know.

My guess would be that he is a Labour man, through and through. He doesn't care if what he says is correct, just that it fits Labour's anti-prostitution agenda. In fact, in this case, he doesn't even bother using some of the time that we fucking pay for, to properly research the matter. Just a quick skim of the Mirror before turning to Andy Capp will do. Then off to Westminster for a bit of a blather.

It must have truly stung him to be so publicly destroyed about it on Newsnight though, as this article in the Independent tends to illustrate.

Joan Smith: Make no mistake: sex trafficking is real

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, Joan, love. The evidence would tend to confirm the latter, mind. But then you would say as you do, seeing as you are quite close to Denis McShane.

She is currently romantically involved with Denis MacShane, a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom

This was pointed out in the comments of the online edition, but how many read the dead tree version and would not have made any connection?

And there we have it. McShane lied to parliament in order to bring in legislation which fit his personal objectives. He was brought to book for this on national TV, but showed no remorse, merely a wish that those who highlighted his shortcomings be removed.

Perhaps it is time to ask middle-aged male grandees from the Guardian and Newsnight to step aside and allow a different journalism (?) to examine the problem.

And, if that doesn't wash, simply get the other half to write a misdirectional piece without declaring an interest.

Oh yeah, and don't forget to gemmy the chiiildren into it somehow. I know it's difficult when talking about contracts between adults, but it has to be done.

It's a clash between people clinging to antiquated ideas from the 1960s – that men are entitled to sex whenever they want it – and those of us with a modern view of the rights of women and children.

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

Having heard today that I passed some high-fallutin' professional qualification exams, there won't be much from me tonight as I intend to get gently shit-faced ... and Fanny P has offered to dust off the once-thought-mythical purse, and pay the bill. What a day!

The ads are an extension of that idea, with Mr T (or most probably a soundalike) using technology to berate wrong-doers, much as has already begun to be used against us.

Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.

The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'.

So how are we supposed to take this ad campaign? The targets most definitely deserve the comedic nudge, but while feeling triumphal in viewing them, it's hard not to experience a sharp embarrassment that the yanks are laughing their tits off at our governors' willingness, both local and national, to allow our country to degrade so far.

Judge for yourself. I laughed ... while at the same time feeling a nagging sense of humiliation and anger.

Just last week I mentioned the call for a ban on Halal and Kosher, which could pit animal rights groups against Judaism and Islam. Now it seems that the enviro-loons are getting in on the act by advising that we change our choice of pet to save the planet, thereby seeing PETA's 'save the sea kittens' stake, and raising it big time by going 'all-in' with domesticating, and eating, rabbits and chickens instead.

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits

"If you have a German shepherd or similar-sized dog, for example, its impact every year is exactly the same as driving a large car around," Brenda Vale said.

"A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don't worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact ... is comparable."

Divide and conquer, it would seem, is not a one way street.

Of course, the simple solution is just to cut the crap and eat the dog. And why not? Some do.

Stung by the oft-highlighted anomaly of tobacco displays being banned whilst adult mags are still permitted to be visible, Glenrothes Labour fucktard, Lindsay Roy, has decided that the discrepancy must be addressed.

Now, here's a little pop quiz for you. Does he:

a) Relax one rule to fit in with the other? Or ...b) Propose even more overweening quaker-like legislation?

That this House believes that politicians, retailers, publishers and distributors have a collective responsibility to protect children and young people from displays of sexually graphic material that they are not emotionally equipped to deal with; calls for an urgent review of existing guidelines drawn up between the Home Office and the National Federation of Retail Newsagents; further believes that such a review must consider the availability of sexually graphic publications to children and young people, the positioning of these publications on the shelves of retailers, the potential for concealing these publications in bags and consider the question of age-rating such publications; and further believes that failure to follow the revised guidelines could lead to calls for legislation covering all aspects of the availability and display of sexually graphic material to children and young people throughout the retail and publishing industries.

In short, guidelines saying they must be hidden should be brought in, and if they are ignored, a new law will be implemented.

It begs the question ... why the need for guidelines if you have made your fucking mind up anyway? Don't waste our time, you prick.

Oh yeah, and can you please stop using a first name as your surname and vice versa. It's very confusing. It sounds like a woman proposing this (which would be more understandable), instead of a male, hideously puritan, recently elected, provincial lickspittle, desperate to ingratiate himself with the leaders of his discredited and megamaniacal party of prurient, disconnected Stalinists, by illustrating that he is of an equally wasteful, bansturbatory, and anti-business nature.

Anyhow. Cutting through the crap, he doesn't want you to see this in your local WH Smith.

(Click to enlarge as you no doubt want to)

But one can confidently bet that the law will not be applied as enthusiastically to this.

Thursday, 22 October 2009

There has been a lot of cyber noise about that human pole vault crash mat in Ipswich. The Sun have been working the room, too.

The general consensus is that he is irresponsible and should be allowed to suffer/starve/rot because the rest of us are paying for him.

However, there are two types of people saying it ... and there is a distinct contrast, between consistency and hypocrisy, depending on where the proponent's theoretical starting point lies.

Take an odious worm like the National Obesity Forum's Tam Fry, for example. On a BBC radio phone-in yesterday, he was advocating his fake charity's policy that such people should be made to pay for their treatment.

What he is saying is that if you overeat, you should pay for related healthcare or "accept the consequences", said consequences being, of course, that you either cough up a barrowload of money ... or die.

The message from these nasty eugenicists is that unapproved lifestyle choices should not be tolerated by the majority of 'responsible' users of the NHS. Yet they are basing their entire reasoning on an actuarial theory that costs borne by the NHS, which are as a direct result of personal choices, should not be included in the category of 'free at the point of delivery'. They have decided which substances or practices are to be demonised and are inferring that the NHS spend on treating smokers/drinkers/obesity is a theft from the public purse.

In short, they are playing on the public's jealousy that someone else is getting more for their money than the average Joe does.

The fact that, with regard to 'unhealthy' lifestyles, this is demonstrably untrue, is immaterial as it is what the public believe after an avalanche of righteous fear-peddling.

Fry (another bloody prissy meddling Jock! Why are we no longer surprised?) is very consistent in his approach to this policy. There are no exceptions. He includes himself as a possible for falling foul of this, for he likes a drink, but as he drinks 'responsibly' he appears 100% certain that it will never happen to him (besides, he can afford it as the state pays him a fortune for peddling this shit). He is not merely talking about egregious examples like the East Anglian barrage balloon either - a 12 stone nurse who received treatment for breast cancer was equally informed that she should have paid for her chemotherapy.

If the criteria is set at such an incredibly low level, there will be a hell of a lot of people paying for what they always believed to be a 'free' service. After all, the vast majority will have paid heftily for it in good faith.

How many greasy spoons up and down the country have been host to the ranting of fry-up guzzling workers, poring over their copy of the currant bun, and venting their spleen at the Ipswich blubber-butt? how many gaggles of slightly overweight Mums, at primary school gates, have been bemoaning their taxes being wasted by this man, before toddling off to Weight Watchers classes? How many of them also smoke, how many drink above recommended unitary limits? How many have been opining that his ilk should be made to pay for his treatment, blissfully unaware that should such a policy be implemented, they too would be made to empty their paltry savings?

Presumably, all such people believe that the bar should be set at the level at which they find objectionable ... that is, anyone visibly larger than them, or who drinks more than them, or who smokes 'too much'. They are all right of course, they are only a bit tubby, they get pissed at weekends but hey, doesn't everyone? And if they smoke, it's not a lot really and they honestly want to give up, so they will be fine.

But if the public trust the proscriptive types in the NHS to tackle only what the public deem as the worst excesses, they are going to be in for a very nasty surprise.

Once the bills begin to be slapped into their hands at the local A&E, they might not #welovethenhs so much anymore. They may then see that it is a system which was sold as being entirely free, which has been paid for through their taxes, but for which extra payment is now being pursued.

It won't be viewed as so bloody perfect then. And how long before the outcry begins to be able to opt out of national insurance payments if this is going to be the case. Why not? If smokers, drinkers and the obese are going to have to take out insurance policies to cover crippling financial penalties (which is an obvious consequence), then why not be allowed to give the private operator all of the business? Why should we be forced by law to pay for a service which only affords the user limited use based on what is deemed correct behaviour and what is not?

Which, funnily enough, is exactly where I stand on the issue. There is a need for a universal health service, but it should be on a voucher system which covers every citizen with a necessary health care. You can choose where you spend your government vouchers, but if you want a higher level of care, you should be prepared (and able) to pay for it.

You see, I can say that he is a fat fucker and I don't want him to be treated on the NHS, but that's because I have always said that the NHS is a thieving organisation which wants us to pay sackloads of cash and then deny our use of it by any means possible. But I don't say that, because while we have an NHS which is designed to treat everyone no matter their lifestyle, he is as deserving as anyone else.

If Tam Fry wants that to change, he must either push for a seismic overhaul in the way healthcare is provided in the UK or shut the fuck up. Tam, of course, doesn't want that at all. Tam wants to keep the NHS exactly as it is, but just make people he doesn't like pay more for it. That's because Tam is himself a hideously pompous drain on the NHS, and deserves to have his intestines removed violently by a psychotic, genetically-enlarged woodpecker.

However, anyone who joined in the #welovethenhs bullshit earlier this year, but simultaneously wants this guy to be allowed to die, is hypocritical and stupid. You either love a warts-and-all health service which treats everyone regardless of illness or means ... or you don't. You can't have it both ways.

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

If you're paid by the state to flick rubber bands, and you are dragged off of Facebook or the celeb gossip pages unduly by some nonsense study, you might just do something ridiculously stupid such as this.

Hundreds of council workers filled out a health and safety questionnaire about biscuit-related injuries, only to discover it was a hoax.

Four councils were so taken in by the spoof survey they reported having specific policy rules on safe biscuit consumption.

One council even claimed to have supervised tea breaks for safety reasons.

A total of 813 over- cautious council employees clicked through to the online survey and 437 risk-averse workers actually took the time to complete it.

The fictitious 'British Biscuit Advisory Board' was created as part of a £3million marketing drive by Fox's biscuits for its Rocky bar.

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Oh look. Labour's one-woman MEP stand-up comedy show Hairy Moneyball, having been humiliated by Iain Dale first, then shot to pieces by experts in the sex industry earlier this month, has now been busted for being plain barking a third time on a subject about which she professes to possess knowledge. The latest, deliciously, by the Guardian.

The UK's biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.

I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on the dozy bint. She has a track record for believing any old junk shite thrown in her general state-sponsored direction. She is a classic case of the lazy, money-grabbing, intellectually-challenged, confirmation biased politician.

She is costing us in the region of £350,000 pa, but still wasn't alert enough to notice how a figure of 71 was massaged by quangoes, fake charities and the Labour party, into a widely reported 25,000 (I'll use snippets, but read the whole thing, do).

And I think we've seen this kind of artful socialist lying in pursuit of Stalinist idealism before, haven't we?

Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic

They spoke to specialists, studied news reports and surveyed police, who reported that 71 women had been "trafficked", whether willingly or not, during 1998.

At the very least, they guessed, there could be another 71 trafficked women who had been missed by police, which would double the total, to 142. At the most, they suggested, the true total might be 20 times higher, at 1,420.

"It can be estimated that the true scale of trafficking may be between two and 20 times that which has been confirmed."

Fake charities turned this rough estimate into a base.

Chaste took the work of Kelly and Regan, brought the estimate forward by two years, stripped out all the caution, headed for the maximum end of the range and declared : "An estimated 1,420 women were trafficked into the UK in 2000 for the purposes of constrained prostitution."

Not big enough, it would seem.

Three years after the Kelly/Regan work was published, in 2003, a second team of researchers was commissioned by the Home Office to tackle the same area. They, too, were forced to make a set of highly speculative assumptions: that every single foreign woman in the "walk-up" flats in Soho had been smuggled into the country and forced to work as a prostitute; that the same was true of 75% of foreign women in other flats around the UK and of 10% of foreign women working for escort agencies. Crunching these percentages into estimates of the number of foreign women in the various forms of sex work, they came up with an estimate of 3,812 women working against their will in the UK sex trade.

Enter the Labour Party.

The researchers ringed this figure with warnings. The data, they said, was "very poor" ... [and] "should be regarded as an upper bound".

No chance. In June 2006, before the research had even been published, the then Home Office minister Vernon Coaker ... [declared] to an inquiry into sex trafficking by the Commons joint committee on human rights: "There are an estimated 4,000 women victims."

Misleading? Lies? From a party steeped in integrity and truth? (stop shouting WMDs, Lisbon, and the smoking ban - I can barely hear myself think FFS) Surely not.

The Salvation Army went further: "The Home Office estimated that in 2003 ... there were at least 4,000 trafficked women residing in the UK. This figure is believed to be a massive underestimation of the problem."

Still. It's not like 4,000 is a big exaggeration, perhaps we can let that pass.

In a debate in the Commons in November 2007, [Labour MP for Rotherham and former Foreign Office minister Denis] MacShane announced that "according to Home Office estimates, 25,000 sex slaves currently work in the massage parlours and brothels of Britain."

There is simply no Home Office source for that figure, although it has been reproduced repeatedly in media stories.

Voila!

And Honeyball no doubt nodded in righteous agreement at every stage of the manufactured lie. Hence why she has top-lined a petition against the abolition of the Met Police trafficking unit which was planned to cost £3.7m over two years.

Because that is obviously value for money in a recession according to Moneyball, yes? Just to re-iterate, this is to tackle a problem that the Guardian headline thus ...

Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution

Give it up, love, you're not helping, as detailed in a damning denouement which shows how very damaging wimmins rights fucknuckles can really be to the women they purport to protect.

Repeatedly, prostitutes groups have argued that [Labour anti-trafficking legislation] is as wrong as the trafficking estimates on which it is based, and that it will aggravate every form of jeopardy which they face in their work, whether by encouraging them to work alone in an attempt to show that they are free of control or by pressurising them to have sex without condoms to hold on to worried customers.

Honeyball, you've been shown up as a tedious, selfish, feminism-obsessed, dictatorial, dogma led moron with no fucking clue even in areas where you choose to specialise.

Three strikes, you are out. Piss off down the local Brussels curry house, dribble cannellini bean korma down your dungarees, and stop wasting our money on your personal prejudices, cunt.

A revaluation of business rates from next April is set to hit the sites of car boot sales, including pub car parks, ministers confirmed.

Barbara Follett, the Communities Minister, confirmed the plans in a written answer to shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman, saying: ''Where a property is used entirely, or on occasion, as a car boot sale site, its rateable value for the 2010 revaluation should reflect any rental enhancement attributable to that use.''

The Tories don't seem to be highlighting this in the way I would, though.

Mrs Spelman accused Gordon Brown of a ''tax assault'' on those who wanted to use car boot sales to kit out their homes during the recession.

Well, that's one way of looking at it but, where I live at least, car boot sales are almost exclusively held by voluntary organisations, local charities, or non profit-making enterprises like amateur football clubs etc.

If the land they rent for holding such events is subject to more tax to the owner, he will, unless he/she is very generous, charge more rent accordingly. The end loser then, is the fund-raiser as they will no doubt see a drop in income by either swallowing the extra cost, or by passing it on and risking the loss of stall-holders ... which amounts to the same thing.

Labour may argue that this is a 'local' tax so not their fault, but considering the government funds most of council spending via the block grant which can (and most often is) manipulated to the government's advantage, I think we know where the extra money is likely to end up. I'd be more generous in my summation of a Labour administration's intentions if they hadn't gone about being a bunch of shifty, lying, money-grabbing fuckers for the past 13 years, of course.

So, a better headline for this story could well have read "Labour Raise Taxes on Local Charities and Voluntary Organisations".

Monday, 19 October 2009

Homebuyers could be forced to provide detailed information about the amount of money they spend on alcohol each month to qualify for a new mortgage under a new clampdown on reckless lending.

In a sweeping review of the mortgage market published today, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said lenders needed to be far more rigorous about their financial checks of potential borrowers.

It said lenders should delve deeper into homebuyers' personal spending including the amount they spend on alcohol and tobacco.

Sorry, FSA, none of your fucking business.

Nor do you need a breakdown of spending on shoes and childcare, or how much we pay per month on frozen ready meals, or alloy wheels, or that subscription to Jugs Monthly, come to that. Don't you get it? Keep your conks out, these details are no concern of yours. Nor are the ins and outs of a duck's arse and our inside leg measurements.

Overall income and expenditure is all the knowledge you require, OK?

Of course, if these questions really are suggestions for the new bells'n'whistles 'approved' FSA affordability test, I imagine fake charities and the Department of Health will be clamouring to get their gnarled bony hands on the responses, judging by their zeal to push for heavy restrictions lately. Figures can only be twisted when there is plenty of data to pummel into a shape which best serves healthist scaremongery - a whole slew of new figures on alcohol and tobacco use will have them whooping into their pine nut bruschetta and camomile tea.

Harvesting the private consumption levels of those who bother no-one and pay their own way would dovetail nicely with the results of legislation currently passing through parliament enabling benefit claimants to be hectored for much the same thing.

But as the bill draws nearer to becoming law, there are growing concerns about the new powers it will devolve to Jobcentre staff. The legislation would allow them to ask benefit claimants searching questions about their drug or alcohol use. Those suspected of having a dependency or of misusing drugs will then be asked to undergo an assessment and, if they refuse, face having their benefits withdrawn for a maximum of 26 weeks.

Do you know, I think that, secretly, they would really like to just send rummage squads to rifle through our bins, searching for signs of good living, but are afraid of the backlash.

It would be more honest though and, let's face it, it's not like they don't already dream of the day when they can have a good old nose around in our waste, is it? Otherwise, ads like this would have lacked that little spark of original inspiration.

Some say they are a spiteful party hell-bent on creating hate and division throughout the country ... I say, let Labour speak (boom, boom). Because when they do, by their words and actions are they damned.

BNP debate 'illegal', warns Hain

Mr Hain wrote: "If you do not review the decision you may run the very serious risk of legal challenge in addition to the moral objections that I make.

In my view, your approach is unreasonable, irrational and unlawful."

It must have come as a surprise to Labour, a party for whom bullying and demonisation are everyday tools of the trade, that Comrade Beeb haven't been taking the hints on this issue. So, out come the veiled threats.

This morally corrupt administration have ruled by lies and deceit, scaremongery and fear, marginalisation and exclusion - this is merely a another shining example of their censorious style of governance ... and even more publicity for the BNP, Labour's nearest ideological rivals and the stealer of many of Labour's voters.

Just as standing up to a bully exposes a cowardly underbelly, so standing up to Labour sends the toys flying as their reasoning deteriorates into shrill invective, and their true hideous, anti-democratic face is revealed.

Labour should be very careful about slinging the 'Nasty Party' tag around at the Tories in the upcoming pre-election months ... their glass house might not withstand the assault.

Sunday, 18 October 2009

It's a day of rest for fuck's sake, can't proscriptive cockwafflers cease hostilities for just 24 blissful hours in a week?

The Financial Services Authority will make banks liable for loans if they do not check customers can afford them.

It is expected to ban self-certified mortgages, in which customers do not have to prove their income.

Because bans are the knee-jerk response in these modern, enlightened times. Fucking beam me up, Scotty, I'm ready for life on another pigging world.

Good grief. Whilst a libertarian such as myself is always suspicious of blanket bans, this one is not only overweening, but also just seems plain daft.

Self-certified mortgages have a very real purpose. For those whose income is hard to prove by conventional means, or the self-employed for whom the general 'three years' accounts' rule is not possible, a self-cert is the only way into home-buying.

They are also (or were when I was in the difficult position of not having traded for three years), a very safe lending opportunity, it always seemed to me.

An average purchase price in my area is around £200,000 I reckon. The self-certs I have seen offered ask for a 20% minimum deposit. So, the lender instantly has a £40,000 head start on the deal. If you failed to make a single payment, the reposession costs and loss of value from a recuperative firesale auction are fairly well covered. There would be a short-term loss of liquidity for the bank but that is about it.

On top of that, the credit risk score required is higher, and the interest rate offered for such deals is normally at a premium which offers attractive profits for the lender - just what they would be looking for in these straitened times, one would assume.

As usual, though, regulators have balanced the evidence, weighed up all the pros and cons, and come to the conclusion that none of us are to be trusted to buy so much as a shoe box on the basis of our own cognisance.

It's the risk-averse culture transposed into the banking sector. Personal responsibility of both the borrower and lender is being eradicated in favour of heavy-handed state intervention. Willing to lend at little or no risk? No chance, the choice is no longer yours. Willing to borrow based on your own confidence in repaying? You're having a bubble, ain't ya?

Now, if the FSA had decided that deposits required for self-certs were too small, or that credit scoring wasn't stringent enough, or even that default rates for self-certs were unacceptably high (which they weren't) then fair enough. But there are never shades of grey anymore, just black and white - ne'er shall erring from the computer model be tolerated. Banning the practice entirely between consenting parties to a contract is a subtle extension of the nanny state, and an interference which shouldn't even be contemplated in a country purporting to be primarily driven by free trade between free individuals and organisations.

Just as in other restrictions and bans, this is the government muscling in as an enforced third party in every contract negotiated in the UK. Not a benign eye watching from afar, but rather an obtrusive in-your-face bully insisting that all life, and transactions therein, are performed to the state's approval.

This is just another day, another confiscation, for us naughty voter 'kiddies'. Not unexpected under this most odious of administrations, but couldn't the control freaks have announced it on a different day? It's right made me choke on my yorkie puds.

A study proving Jewish and Islamic methods of slaughtering animals are painful has led to renewed calls for a ban in Britain

UK law requires that all livestock be stunned prior to slaughter – with the exception of those animals intended for consumption by members of certain religions. Islamic halal and Jewish kashrut law require that animals are slaughtered by having their throat cut – a relatively slow means of death.

Practitioners of ritual slaughter say the animal must be alive to facilitate the draining of blood – and that throat slitting is humane.

But the new research suggests otherwise.

Adam Rutherford, an editor of Nature, wrote on the Guardian website: "It suggests that the anachronism of slaughter without stunning has no place in the modern world and should be outlawed. This special indulgence to religious practices should be replaced with the evidence-based approaches to which the rest of us are subject."

Some European countries, such as Sweden, require all animals to be stunned before slaughter with no exception for religions. But such a ban in Britain would be hugely controversial – and would draw inevitable comparisons with the ban on kashrut enacted by Nazi Germany in 1933**.

This is Victimhood Poker on a grand scale. On one side we have the meat is murder/animal welfare brigade, on the other, the massed ranks of Islam and Judaism.

Could be a cracker, especially if the EU and PETA get involved too. A gold-plated, lefty, righteous, tag-team classic bout.

On which side, for example, is vegan seal-hugger Kerry McCarthy, with her significant Islamic electorate, going to come down? My guess would be that her animal-loving nature will find itself quickly suppressed in the face of the potential local backlash.

This could develop over time. I mean, it's not like the plaintiffs lack power, influence, or financial backing, is it?

Looking forward to the fireworks and awkward self-absorbant in-fighting already.

** I don't know why that should bother them, it's not like they haven't copied certain 1930s Germany legislation already.

Friday, 16 October 2009

You'd have to go a long way to beat an article such as this. In fact, you have to go a bloody long way just to find it!

Good to know that scepticism of healthist lies methods is a worldwide phenomenon, though. It's a viewpoint which seems to be especially thriving in New Zealand for some reason.

Sometime soon, we'll see a report showing that the social costs of skiing are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It wouldn't be hard to produce a number that large. First, show frequent skiers are more likely to have accidents than recreational skiers.

Then, make the critical assumption that nobody could ever rationally decide to take risks - health is all that matters. Frequent skiers then are by definition irrational, and irrational people enjoy no benefits from their ski outings, no matter how happy they appear.

This is an argument proffered by libertarians that is generally dismissed out of hand by our holier-than-thou masters. Of course they aren't going to go after skiers ... or rugby players, or cyclists, or anyone else enjoying a pastime which is deemed 'correct' - when was the last time you read about the huge weekly cost of park footballers clogging up A&E departments with recreational injuries? Such hobbies have benefits - healthy ones - plus, the fake report authors are quite keen on doing such things themselves, so they'd never produce the kind of lunatic 'science' and innumerate manipulation of financial outcomes as they do in other fields.

And there isn't a fake charity, paid by government, to tackle problematic skiers, egg chasers, or the Haringey Cloggers Sunday footie team ... yet.

We've seen a lot of cost measures of this sort. Tobacco, fatty foods, gambling - just about anything fun seems to cost "society" more than a billion dollars.

But, like my hypothetical report on the costs of skiing, these reports rely heavily on what I'll call a "healthist" assumption about how we should live our lives.

Any time we make a decision that lets us enjoy a bit of fun but with some risk to our health, that decision is considered irrational and cannot generate any real enjoyment.

Consequently, benefits are either assumed equal to zero or set to an arbitrarily low level.

And there it is in a nutshell. Your enjoyment isn't worth quantifying to the righteous, it has a benefit of £nil. You may derive enjoyment from it, you may find that your meagre lot is more happy and tolerable, and that you are a more useful member of society as a result, but the righteous dismiss that as worthless.

Downtime on the piste will bring equal relaxation and enjoyment (both of which, last time I looked, were considered as an incontestable good), but such enjoyment is allowed. It is decent and admired. If your personal choice of unwinding is deemed unworthy, the rules change.

Driving a car is also an evil which is worth quantifying as being beneficial. It may kill and choke thousands, probably millions or even billions, but healthists also drive, and they also manage to quantify the financial benefits and accept the inherent risks.

If health and safety were our only goal, the world would look very different. We would all buy cars made of padded foam rubber and drive very slowly. That we don't is strong evidence that we have pluralistic sets of values - we are not monomaniacal healthists in our daily lives.

For every skier who dies in an avalanche, tens of thousands of others took no fewer risks but enjoyed a great time out on the slopes. Their enjoyment ought to count for something.

And, for every drinker who dies in an accident that could have been avoided were he sober, there are countless others who simply enjoyed a good night out.

Where a healthist report tallies the social costs for the unlucky few, rational policy requires putting weight on the benefits as well.

But they don't. Because they don't want to, as it doesn't fit with their rent-seeking, single-minded agenda.

There are risks all around us, in every single activity that humans indulge in. Either vital to the country, or merely recreational.

However, there are also costs and benefits in all of them too. To ignore advantageous economics in some areas whilst accepting it in others is quite simply wrong.

Some may even term it more sinister than that. I would be amongst that 'some', and fortunately, as it would appear from this excellent article, there are a whole load of us around the world who feel the same.

The heart still clings to the hope that one day we might see the 646 in parliament populated by a few more who would even begin to understand the incontrovertible logic carried in this article.

The head, however, comes to the conclusion that they will forever wander around Westminster like nodding dogs the moment a dodgy stat is placed in front of their dim, unquestioning, myopic, self-promoting intellect.

And, in doing so, they cost us, collectively, a hell of a lot more than any healthist scaremongery boasts about, on a daily basis.

Whatever all those [national newspaper] correspondents do all day, it clearly doesn't involve basic factchecking.

For those who are unaware, the austere and diligent (pfft) British press tend to throw the odd tantrum against bloggers, usually levelling the accusation that we engage keyboard before tidying up niceties like ... err ... facts.

Conversely, the MSM are supposedly pristine in their adherence to publishing accuracy.

But then, when one reads quite astounding bollocks like this from the Daily Mail, such haughty posturing collapses like a weighty, inebriated tart in her new pair of six inch heels.

Bans on smoking in restaurants and bars reduces the risk of heart attacks among non smokers, according to hard hitting report. The research, by the U.S. Institute of Medicine reviewed 11 key studies of smoking bans in Scotland, Italy, the U.S and Canada.

Yawn.

So, considering that the largest study ever conducted worldwide on the matter, covering 217,023 heart attack admissions and 2 million heart attack deaths in 468 counties in all 50 states of the USA over an eight-year period (which the Mail notably failed to report back in April), concluded that there was no effect at all on heart attack submissions following smoking bans, I was mightily intrigued at such revelatory NEW research.

In Helena, Montana, for example, they recorded 16 per cent fewer heart attack hospitalisations in the six months after its ban went into effect. Nearby areas that had no smoking ban saw heart attacks rise over the same period.

Eh? Would this be the 'Helena Miracle' which has been hugely derided since it poked its laughable head out six long years ago? The study which is so readily ridiculed that even anti-smoking advocates are ashamed of it?

More dramatically, heart attack hospitalisations dropped 41 per cent in the three years after Pueblo, Colorado, banned workplace smoking.

Good grief. The Mail aren't reporting on a new study at all, merely a list of the most farcical nonsense ever foisted on the public by obsessive anti-tobacco zombies.

Pueblo is also a steaming pile of horse shit, is also years old, and is also now comprehensively considered as fantasy.

Hmmm. Just my opinion and all that, but I'd say someone at the Mail is being a rather lazy fucker if they can't work out that this 'new' research is egregious cherry-picked data from some of the worst 'science' ever conducted ... on anything.

According to some experts, third-hand smoke, as it is known, is as dangerous to health as the fumes billowing directly from a pipe or cigarette, particularly for babies and children.

A recent report in America has warned that even if you don't smoke in front of your family, you might be putting them at risk of cancer or delaying the development of their brain, thanks to polluting their environment with a lingering chemical cloud.

The research behind this story did not actually assess the dangers of “third-hand” smoke, but instead surveyed people’s beliefs about these dangers, and whether this was related to the likelihood of banning smoking in their own homes.

All one can accurately assess from these jaw-droppingly naïve articles is that the only prerequisites required to be a Daily Mail health reporter are the ability to point a finger at a keyboard, and the possession of an unenquiring mind.

Little wonder, then, that an entire film can be made about how very crap the newspapers are at reporting truthful news.

UPDATE: Chris Snowdon weighs in with categorical proof that not only is today's Daily Mail article utter tosh, the conclusions of the new study they report are also physically and scientifically impossible.

Try as I might, I can't get an old joke out of my head after reading this.

But - with observers beginning to fear the worst - Falcon was eventually found hiding in a box in his parents' attic, unaware of the extraordinary state-wide chase he had caused. He may, perhaps, be in a little trouble with his parents.

So, here goes:

{phone rings}Kid {whispering}: HelloCaller: Hi young man, can I talk to your father please?Kid {whispering}: No, he's busyCaller: OK, your mother, then?Kid {whispering}: No, she's busyCaller: Is there anyone else there I can talk to?Kid {whispering}: A policeman.Caller: Great, can you let me talk to him?Kid {whispering}: No, he's busy.Caller: OK. Anyone else there?Kid {whispering}: The fire brigadeCaller: There are a lot of people in your house. What on earth are they all busy doing?Kid {whispering}: Looking for me.

Thursday, 15 October 2009

I wandered up to a pub in the shadow of the motherfucker of all parliaments last night.

While state-paid policy wonks, and glammed-up secretaries from Chelmsford and Croydon happily indulged in much of what the government would prefer we didn't do, inside and outside the ground floor, upstairs a small reactionary enclave of heretics were discussing something now deemed rather abhorrent by the leaders of a free country.

Freedom of individual choice.

The event was the London launch of a book, authored by ex-MSP Brian Monteith, on the replacement of the Nanny State with the more sinister 'Bully State'.

To anyone who actually possesses a brain, rather than merely being fodder for the neuro-linguistic shenanigans of the righteous, the revelations within shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but Monteith does conclude in an upbeat manner, as the synopsis hints at.

Everyone has heard of the nanny state. Many object to its pervasive influence in our daily lives, some reluctantly conclude that nanny really has our best interests at heart, while others work feverishly to extend nanny's influence.

That was then, this is now. Nanny has been dismissed, sent packing. Nanny has been replaced by the bully.

Unlike nanny, the bully state is not content to allow people to enjoy their hard-fought liberties while pointing out the choices it would prefer us to make. Today, the state goes to increasing lengths to enter into our private domain. Our homes are no longer our castles as the state seeks to dictate our behaviour with intimidation and threats, backed up by severe penalties, the threat of a criminal record, or the loss of one's livelihood.

Brian Monteith, a former member of the Scottish parliament, reveals how the nanny state came to be and why, dissatisfied with our stubborn resistance to her pleas to change our behaviour, the bully state has been brought in to enforce a stricter code of conduct.

Despite this, Monteith remains optimistic, explaining how we can beat the bullies and remain free to enjoy our liberties.

And a good read it is too. It will anger you, of that there is no doubt, but don't let that put you off. I'm sure if you've found this blog you're probably rather hacked off already.

When I finally sidled my way past the civil service 'suits', still blithely ignoring the soon-to-be statutory alcohol limits which their dim employers continue to parrot, at 10pm, book safely tucked under my arm, I felt happier that there is still a faint beating of a libertarian heart underneath all the execrable crap we are forced to stomach on a daily basis.

I once suggested to some beardy tossbag from CAMRA that he should throw his weight behind objecting to tobacco prohibition because his vice was next. He piffled that drinkers were too numerous to be subject to the same denormalisation.

May God rot his middle class pompous paunch if he doesn't now realise that he was disastrously wrong.

HUMANITY's relationship with alcohol has never been easy. Now it is about to undergo as great a change as our attitude to tobacco, which has seen smoking plummet from the height of cool to the lowest of unpleasant habits.

Unveiled last week in Geneva, Switzerland, the document is the culmination of talks between representatives from the WHO's 193 member states. "It is a landmark document," says Peter Anderson, a health consultant and adviser on alcohol to the WHO and the European Union.

Sally Casswell of Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, who helped produce the WHO document says a focus on passive drinking is key to winning public acceptance for more stringent alcohol legislation. "It challenges the neoliberal ideology which promotes the drinker's freedom to choose his or her own behaviour," she says.

And the lines are drawn against the nay-sayers too.

Others are sceptical of the [drinks] industry's contribution to the debate. Robin Room of the University of Melbourne, Australia, who studies the legislation on recreational drugs, fears that some parts of the WHO document may already have been watered down to appease the industry, especially those seeking to restrict marketing.

How very dare they defend their evil drug!

I'll say it again. You simply cannot pick and choose which freedoms you like and which you don't. You either stand up to all of the dictatorial bullying, or you will inevitably become a target.

The drinks industry had better get those screens ready, the anti-alcohol steamroller is on its way.

Now, cast your mind back ... when was the last time you voted for the WHO, exactly?

ACS Chief Executive James Lowman said: “The Minister has proposed regulations that are the most inflexible of their type anywhere in the world. It makes a mockery of the repeated reassurances that Ministers have made to Parliament and businesses that they will take a light touch approach to compliance.”

They lobbied, they persuaded, they argued, they pleaded. They begged for the government lies surrounding the matter to stop. They were completely ignored. And just for good measure, Labour decided to destroy the vending machine industry entirely too, without even going through the tedious motions of a vote.

The removal of cigarettes from public display is a step closer after MPs said vending machines should be banned and shops should keep stocks out of sight.

The vending machine amendment to the government's Health Bill was passed by the Commons without going to a vote.

Voting Labour is a filthy habit, and it is our duty to protect our children from the evil Labour-peddlers.

50,000+ voters quitting in one day is great news for the societal health of the nation, welcome to a new life of freedom from the clutches of the socialist vote addiction.

The denormalisation of Labour voting has led to Labour voter prevalence being reduced to only around 27% - thanks to generously laughable policy-making from Labour themselves. This shows that great strides have been made in eradicating this awful cancer at the heart of our country, but there must be no let up. The latest good news is to be applauded as we strive for a Labourfree world for our children.

She worked (impeccably) for us for the princely monthly part-time gross wage of around £500 per month (approx £6 per hour). As such, she qualified for housing benefit.

Now, not wishing to be condemnatory, she wasn't the most financially astute person in the country, but as genuine goes, there really couldn't be an equal. For two months she did a bit of overtime at our request, for which she was paid £148 and £112 respectively. Neither month brought her into even paying basic rate tax.

She didn't notify the benefits office. Foolish some might say, but then she's no accountant and it wasn't a huge sum. There is no way this person could possibly have been attempting to defraud the taxpayer (you'll have to take my character reference for that), she just didn't think about it.

Six months later, she received a letter stating that she was to present herself for an interview under caution for benefit fraud.

Scared witless, she spoke to me and I agreed to be her representative at the hearing. I read the documents she was sent and they were truly scary, as they are deliberately worded to be. Being a gobby shite who has defeated bigger fish than a council (actually, I've beaten my local council twice too, but that's beside the point), I wouldn't personally feel so much dread. She, however, was almost suicidal.

Having agreed to the gig, I read up on the process. I couldn't understand why it couldn't be resolved with a phone call from the council and a readjustment of her benefit payments. There is no way anyone could believe that such a small sum could be deemed intentional fraud, surely?

It didn't take long to find out why the council moved swiftly onto the 'interview under caution', without even a cursory attempt to solve the problem with less fuss, but more of that later.

In the days leading up to the hearing, I tried my hardest to stop her from worrying, but it didn't do a lot of good. She didn't sleep for nearly a week, was constantly crying, and really didn't help my business as her work suffered noticeably.

The day arrived and I drove her there. I wasn't allowed to actually speak unless the two council officers were contravening procedure (and I was gagging for them to do so), so I was forced to watch as they first read the girl her rights. Then they ceremonially unwrapped the interview tapes (two of them), before double-grilling her as if she had just mugged an old lady.

They were well-spoken and confident having conducted many of these interviews. My charge was shaking, tearful, and continually trying to emphasize that she was sorry and that she had made a mistake.

The continually proffered answer was that:

"Making a mistake is not a defence. If you are deemed to be guilty of benefit fraud, you may be prosecuted"

At the end of the hearing, my employee was left with three possibilities. That the transgression would be dismissed, that she would receive a formal caution, or that they would move to prosecute and land her with a criminal record.

It didn't help her mood much.

I tried to tell her, on the drive back, that they wouldn't enforce the court option as it was a trifling amount. Understandably, after such an ordeal, she wasn't as confident as I was. I did tell her, though, that she would receive a formal caution.

The reason I knew this was that, as mentioned previously, I had been reading up and, under the Anti-Fraud Incentive Scheme, brought in by those nice working class supporting Labour types in 2002, the council would be paid £1,000 for doling one out.

And that is what happened, after she had been subjected to an agonising two week wait. A formal caution was issued and her benefits were adjusted to pay back the ridiculously small amount that was overpaid.

She doesn't work for us anymore. Within a month of this, she quit and has probably gone back to staying at home, looking after her kid, and taking what the government gives without the possibility of being dubbed a potential criminal.

We lost a damn good worker, and the country pays more. Great.

So, onto Jacqui Smith. Here is what a local authority 'formal caution' is supposed to discourage.

My employee said sorry over and over again for the benefit difference of earning £260. She received a formal caution and was made to pay the paltry sum back.

Jacqui Smith deliberately steals £117,000 from taxpayers, says sorry, and gets to keep it without any recourse to criminal action - not even a formal caution.

Seeing as the AA are giving advice as to how innocent drivers can avoid being taken to the cleaners by the government during postal strikes ...

"Although insurers and DVLA send out reminders, these may of course be delayed in the post and it remains your responsibility to check your existing tax disc and insurance certificate to ensure that you renew them in good time. A postal strike will not be accepted as an excuse for failing to renew either."

Vaclav Klaus is now getting backing from his government to secure an opt-out to the Lisbon Treaty, according to the Wall Street Journal.

PRAGUE -- The Czech government said Monday it is ready to discuss President Vaclav Klaus's demand for a special clause in the Lisbon treaty with other European Union governments and officials, but asked him to guarantee he won't raise any new conditions for his approval of the document.

Last week, Mr. Klaus, the last hold-out among European leaders and an outspoken critic of the Lisbon Treaty, said he would only sign the treaty if the Czech Republic gets a permanent opt-out from the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.

All power to your elbow, Vaclav, keep it up, son.

Hmmm. So this would appear to put the ball firmly back in the EU's court, would it not? No opt-out, no ratification from the Czech Republic. One would assume that Klaus's negotiators will be fêted when they next return to Brussels ... Barroso might even break out the big tin of Quality Street and his best Port. And, of course, an opt-out seems certain.

All this on the back of Ireland also being seduced, like a louche tart, into voting yes to the treaty with exemptions and opt-outs, after Brown had squinted his way through scribbling away the UK public's right to an opinion in some Benelux back room.

Now, forgive me if I'm applying parochial logic to this, but if I signed my business up to an agreement between 27 similar businesses to mine (disregard the fact that the Office of Fair Trading would be crawling all over us for it), and after I had added my signature, two of the 27 obtained special terms not available to me at the time, I would be tempted to cry foul.

I might decide that I would like to consult my partners and/or legal advisers about it. Maybe even hold a vote amongst my employees to see what they thought of the deal, and whether it was a partnership worth pursuing. And if they said no? Well, I might take my chances and argue through the courts that the agreement had changed since I put pen to paper, so was null and void.

Sunday, 11 October 2009

They do say that money can't buy happiness. It would seem that they are partly correct. Only the sheer bliss of using one's influence to piss on your fellow man, grinding them into subservient misery for one's own personal gain, truly gives that buzz of satisfaction.

However, you still need celebrity, and about £320m to do so, if you are Duncan Bannatyne.

Well, would you credit it? Just what we need right now - yet another selfish, bigoted, closet Nazi from Jockland. Is there something in the fucking water up there? Some severe strain of viral puritanism which turns every kilty into a mouth-frothing paternalist with a sideline in sadistic subjugation of those they consider unclean, once given a badge/microphone/newspaper column?

So, what has this deeply miserable multi-millionaire got to say to back up his anti-social view?

I used to be a smoker.

Ah. I think we know where this is going.

I tried several times to give up, but only lasted a few months before going back. During one of the periods when I was off cigarettes, I went to the pub. Somebody bought a round, then someone passed round a packet of fags. I foolishly took one – I'd had a few drinks – and the next thing I was a smoker again.

You see, an ex-smoker will never be a never-smoker. Ask anyone who has ever quit if they would, deep down, want to smoke just one more fag and they will tell you that the urge never leaves.

The brave will just accept this as a fact of life and get on with being a part of the rich diversity of modern living. Selfish cunts like Bannatyne, however, will demand that the rest of society comply with their personal wish to be free of temptation. Even being 176th on the rich list can't take that nagging desire away when a wisp of smoke errs, like a naughty schoolkid, close to their cowardly nostrils.

Bannatyne has bought into the anti-tobacco movement with every part of his being. So much so, that he is now President of No Smoking Day and a co-opted rep for fake charity, QUIT.

As such, he has been wheeled out by the tobacco bansturbation lobby as they ramp up their activities prior to the third reading of the Health Bill tomorrow. For those that aren't aware, part of Lord 'I'll say whatever the DoH tell me to say' Darzi's wide-ranging legislation is the concealment of tobacco displays and the banning of cigarette vending machines.

The state-funded healthist brownshirts have been furrowing their collective brows on a plethora of media outlets over the weekend, in anticipation of the return to Westminster of the nice-but-dims who will be placing their vacant backsides on the green seats tomorrow.

Labour donor Bannatyne got the Guardian/Observer gig.

Tomorrow, the House of Commons will see the third and final reading of the Health Bill. I believe MPs must support the clause that would ensure that cigarettes being sold in shops must be stored out of sight, though I'm puzzled and concerned as to why so many seem reluctant to back this move.

Arch-businessman Bannatyne doesn't understand why business owners are reacting angrily to potentially lethal costs to their business? Fuck a duck! For chrissakes I hope this guy never gets a commission for a TV show advising businessmen ... sorry, what did you say?

Whether by accident or design, the primary colours used on both the outside of cigarette packets and the shelves they are kept on attract children.

Tobacco companies can't be trusted to make cigarette packets a colour that doesn't work in this way, so they should be put out of sight.

Like I say, swallowed the anti-tobacco lines verbatim. I don't know what colour he is thinking would be acceptable, but then, this tactic has been used over and over again by the righteous. Quite simply, there isn't one. No matter what the purveyors of non-approved products do, it will never be enough.

The non-co-operation ploy was the reason given for the ban on tobacco advertising in the 80s, and is being used right now as the puritans march towards ultimate alcohol prohibition.

The government's "de-normalisation" of tobacco is welcome, but it's taking too long. The Health Bill proposes to restrict cigarette-vending machines in pubs. But they should be banned altogether.

Hey Duncan, you cunt, the vending machine operators are not too happy about this either. Are you, the incredibly gifted business guru, also puzzled about why that would be? Because their business would cease to exist overnight, that's fucking why.

Even smokers don't like them, because they typically give you only 16 cigarettes instead of a normal packet of 20 and cost £6, about £1 more than in the shops.

Smokers don't like them so much, Duncan, you blinkered cock, that the vending industry has been thriving for decades.

Here's a quick economics lesson for you. In business, yeah? There is a thing called supply and demand. With me so far? Vending companies sell their product at a price which is optimal for their profits considering its placement, OK?

For crying out loud, if this guy ever gets to spout his business ideas on TV, we're in deep shit without a rubber ring. Wow! So many hands up all of a sudden. Can you wait till the comments? I'm in the middle of a rant here.

And many pub landlords think the government's halfway-house proposals are unworkable because bar staff would have to check people's age ID before operating the machine by remote control.

Well, bugger me with a beer pump sideways, perhaps I misjudged you, Duncan. You're quite the business saviour, after all. All that checking of ID for bar staff to do. What a bind, eh? I'll bet they will need special training too seeing as they don't DO IT EVERY BASTARD DAY!

Still. Job done. He's had his one-sided view. He has done exactly as ASH, the DoH and the rest of his taxpayer-funded puppet-masters had instructed.

Oh wait, he's barely started ...

In my view smokers who currently stand outside a pub or restaurant having a fag should have to stand at least several yards away from the front door, to save the 79% of us who don't smoke from breathing in their smoke when we go in or out. We should curtail the rights of the 21% and increase their responsibilities towards the 79%. In other words, we should stop them killing us and our children.

Shhhh! That's yet to come, Duncan. ASH must be looking through their fingers at this stuff. It's only on the drawing board for now, you daft sweaty sock! The studies to 'prove' kids will die by walking past a smoker in the High Street haven't been paid for yet!

Studies estimate that about 11,000 people a year die because of passive smoking.

Wrong. It was just one study, by a guy called Konrad Jamrozik of Queensland ... Australia. The anti-smoking knob-chokers had to look to an insignificant bigot from the arse end of the world to come up with anything remotely worrying, and that was about heavy passive smoking. Inside. And even then, he needed a dodgy calculator to produce such nonsense.

This isn't nanny statism, Big Brother, or wrongful interference in people's personal freedoms – it's the right thing to do to protect the health of the vast majority of us who don't smoke from the declining minority who do.

Can you see the approach here? Us and them. It's a deliberate method to point out that smokers are evil, and non-smokers must defend their own kind.

Divisive and evil. But then, what can one expect from a disgusting self-absorbed cock-socket who uses the first person singular pronoun over a dozen times to advance his views on society.

By saying "I want" over and over again, he is apparently benefitting community, tolerance and inclusiveness in our country. Or he could just be a scottish goat-felcher with the tobacco control lobby's bollocks bouncing off his chin. Your choice.

So, has the self-indulgent drivel come to a close yet? Like hell it has.

Smoking should be banned in cars, and particularly any vehicle with children in it.

Duncan. Again, can you please keep to the subject at hand. That's for next week, you caledonian berk.

On a school visit I met a 12-year-boy who wanted to be an athlete who told me that every morning his mother lit up when she was driving to school, even though he'd begged her to stop. He should be able to report her to the police.

Because that was quite effective in 1930s Germany, so it's a proven winner, huh?

Jesus fucking Christ, smokers will be confined to our homes at pain of death soon.

It should also be illegal to smoke at home in front of children.

!!!!!

I accept that enforcing such a law would be difficult, but it would send a message that such behaviour is unacceptable.

Not difficult to enforce at all, Duncan. You're not much of a tobacco-averse loon, are you? It's quite simple, really. Unannounced spot checks from social workers with entry powers to every property in the UK would cut it. Now, where's the problem in legislation as unobtrusive as that, eh?

But that is because the tobacco industry have been up to their old tricks. They tried to convince pubs that the smoke-free law would drive them out of business so they would lobby against the law.

This is pure cloud cuckoo land. What tricks? The pubs didn't put up any resistance and are now cloing at a rate of 52 per week. The smokefree law, did, quite literally, put most of the 3,000+ that have disappeared since July 2007, out of business. If tobacco companies tried to convince pubs before the previous Health Act, they would have been absolutely spot on.

Now they are doing the same thing with shopkeepers.

If they are, shopkeepers should be extremely afraid. There is now a terrifying precedent from which to draw evidence.

A retailer from the northeast recently went to Ireland to find out the truth and the shopkeepers he spoke to told him that now they had won their displays back from the tobacco companies who controlled them, they were free to promote products that allowed them to make a healthy profit.

Anecdotal, so I shall add my own.

I was on my way out of a newsagent local to my business when I overheard the asian owner chatting to a confectionery rep - just chewing the fat, as one does. I stopped on the way out to listen unobtrusively, pretending to look at the front page of the Daily Sport ... OK, I was looking at the front page of the Daily Sport, but I didn't inhale - too busy listening.

He was regaling how he abhors smoking. His wife and he had never smoked and they wished they didn't have to sell cigarettes. But he had to because the additional purchases were vital to his business. Without cigarette sales, his business would die.

Guess what I initially went in for? And guess what I came out with? Yep, my fags, a Picnic bar ... and a copy of the Daily Sport.

The island's surgeon-general said that he wanted Mauritius to become the first totally no-smoking country in the world. I would like the UK to get there first.

And that is the entire premise of Bannatyne's ridiculous leap into the future. It's what he wants, and therefore it's what MPs should all vote for.

It matters not that Lord Darzi and the Department of Health have been deliberately misleading parliament. It matters not that an entire vending industry will cease to exist overnight. It matters not that convenience stores will undoubtedly close despite there being no evidence whatsoever that the measure will have any beneficial effect.